Sacks became an official NFL stat in 1982, which means that some sack records around the league come with asterisks attached to them.
For old-school Rams fans, that will be the case for the record that Aaron Donald set in Thursday night’s win over the Seahawks. Donald sacked Russell Wilson in the third quarter to move to 88.5 career sacks, which broke a tie with Leonard Little and made Donald the franchise’s all-time sack leader.
“It feels good. It’s a blessing. It’s even better when you accomplish something like that coming off a divisional win,” Donald said.
Donald’s sack made him the official leader, but Pro-Football-Reference.com’s work to compile sack totals before 1982 shows that he still has some work to do to become the undisputed leader for the Rams. Reaching Merlin Olson’s 91 career sacks should happen without much trouble, but Deacon Jones has been credited with 159.5 sacks and Jack Youngblood had 151.5 during his time with the Rams.
Donald may not make it quite that far, but no one in Rams country will be complaining about what he’s done for the team since entering the league in 2014.